User blog:Hippie Rat/Review of Animeme Rap Battles's My Little Pony vs Pokémon
Hey yo hi hello Man...fuck ARB Season 2. We all know how bullshit it was. Fucking "memes", eh? More like...creams? peams? keys? Idk, I don't want to put much thought into this series. ARB Season 2 had like ten times as many rappers as season 1 but about a quarter as many meme rappers. I'm not going to dwell on this too much, Animeme already announced in the description of the season 2 finale that it was a mistake of trying to do a new thing that didn't go well, and the way they say that it can't be certain if they'll ever return to rap battles, but who knows. I will mention it here or there when looking at this specific battle, but that's neither here nor there. So...Pokémon rap-battling My Little Pony. Have I ever seen a My Little Pony-themed rap battle that didn't make me cringe? Give me a moment to think.... Bronies vs Trekkies was actual trash..I literally ran into Luna Game vs Cupcakes in a cringe compilation..there's been a few minor MLP appearances in royales I've seen that are trash...yeah, no, MLP in a rap battle has always made me cringe. That's probably not the show's fault, I'm sure the show is decent, but the people who are putting these characters in rap battles just make them suck. And this is no exception. I don't even want to categorize the shit, but I guess I'll rant about the characters used or something. Fair warning: I won't be giving enough of a shit about this. So I guess the characters chosen to rep MLP are decent, all the characters on that side (or at least their names) are immediately recognizable to anyone on the Internet as a result of the large amount of MLP on the Internet that the casual user will eventually run into, thus one can only assume they used the correct main characters (Did my research, turns out Twilight Sparkle is the main character, yet in this Rainbow Dash is the main rapper. Nah, fam.). I don't even know what was going on with the Pokémon side. I understand using Ash, he's the main character and all, but Oak, Pokédex (sorry, Ponydex), and Nurse Joy backup "rapping"? Why not...a Pokémon? Sure no Pokémon talk (except Meowth but he's not on the Pokémon side, I'll get to that soon,) but geez take some creative license on that. And if you gotta use humans.....use Ash's actual sidekicks! Brock, Misty, May, who the fuck ever. But honestly, no backup rappers really fit on the Pokémon side except maybe Pikachu. So we went through both sides right? Need I remind you this is bullshit? Of course there's one more side. A fucking Pokémon is third-partying. You know, in Bond vs Powers, Connery's third party is justified by the fact that the battle actually turns into Bond vs Bond with Powers off to the side enjoying the show and maybe cracking a joke every once in a while. Stay Puft Marshmallow Man's third party didn't do this, which made some people think Stay Puft's inclusion was out of place. Meowth took the Stay Puft route. He insults both sides evenly despite being unevenly connected to those sides. This isn't the only time ARB did that. The battle just before, Minecraft vs Lego, does the same thing. In fact it does a lot of things the same. Acceptable reps on one side, fucking random backups on the other side, then a third party that disses both sides evenly despite not being evenly connected to both sides. It's gross. I think the Fanmade Rap Battle Database wiki hit the nail on the head with the choice of characters: "It features My Little Pony protagonists Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle and Fluttershy rapping against Pokemon characters that are not actually Pokemon, Ash Ketchum, Nurse Joy, Professor Oak. Also, pimp Meowth makes an appearance as well for some reason." Like..they're not wrong. The look of the bullshit I mean, they do this all the time in ARB, it's kind of a staple, and the animation is actually kinda good. The design of the characters though don't always look great (the ponies look super janky in front view and..kinda janky in side view too but it's not as bad) and the shots of actual cool stuff going on are commonly followed by shots of fucking nothing happening. And sometimes the shot is...Ash Ketchum performing BDSM on Pikachu...? A playing card for diaper rash...? Professor Oak looking like one of those super gross frames from SpongeBob...? No thanks... Something about the lyrics They cost a thousand dollars. It's got lines that are presented as clever while not being clever at all, "jokes" that go on too long, hypocritical disses, and a bunch of bullshit that I can't describe in words. The cost for writing this battle was a thousand dollars. Honestly no one would be shoving this fact around so much if it wasn't shoved down our throats so much throughout the season. I guess I have to go in depth about these lyrics now? Fine, I don't care, I'll do it. I'm not happy about this though. Enjoy. Rainbow Dash: I could make this quick but I'll make it even faster. (Sonic the Hedgehog: the fastest thing alive. Speedy Gonzales: the fastest mouse in all of Mexico. The Flash: so fucking fast he can destroy universes. Rainbow Dash: faster than quick. I feel like this could've been made to sound more impressive somehow. Just saying.) You're no master trainer, you're just a slave master. (Well shit dude, this is just a step sideways from those boring "animal abuse" lines. It gives the punchline without good buildup...isn't clever...and has sexual connotation. Let's steer clear from sexual connotation in My Little Pony, please.) I got an army of Bronies who shadow my every move. (If you ask me, I say insult the Bronies. Don't boast the Bronies. The more popular half of the meme appears to be based on cringing at them, not reveling in their presence, as the other half of the meme is. Although, you CAN boast the Bronies if it ties in well, but when you do, you should be able to open it as an insult right after.) Your rhymes are harder to find than a shiny Mewtwo. (Well I mean that's just a reference. There's no...buildup...there's not even a punchline.... This isn't even a joke... This is just a line. I..I mean.... This one line cost like thirty bucks (pun intended). That's a $31.25 line right there.) Ash Ketchum: I would catch you, Rainbow Trash, but I already have a Rapidash. (Ash decently connects both sides of the battle by mentioning a Pokémon that looks kinda like an MLP character or something. Word it a bit more fun and it'd be perfect.) In Japan, horse is a delicacy; thundershock, Pikachu, I'm hungry! (Man, everything is a delicacy in Asia. Get silly with it. Throw in actual jokes, don't be all cut-and-paste. Horse is a strange choice of food that has been accused of being sold in school lunches. Ash is, according to my research, just now going to school, but otherwise, during the time this battle was created, Ash never going to school was a joke tossed around every once in a while. You can say something about the reason Ash never went to school is so he didn't have to subject himself to the bad taste that is horse. There's a joke somewhere in everything, you just have to find it.) Tell all your little 'phonies' it's about to get deadly, (Weak filler buildup with a pun that is reused later in the battle.) 'Cause I just caught a Snorlax and gave him a Five Hour Energy! (Spicy meme. Such dank. Don't give fuck.) Twilight Sparkle: I'll poison your Pokémon with chemicals from Monsanto (What the fuck even is a Monsanto? I had to google that shit. Why should I have to google that shit? I don't want to google shit.) And flap my wings when I kick your ass back to Kanto. ("I'll do this thing because I can, when I empty threat.") You should have saved your game before you started this match, (This goes for any video game. Get clever, fam.) 'Cause you won't just black out after we trample your ass. (Not only is this probably the most empty and cliché threat, but Twilight implies that the ponies will directly fight and beat up Ash instead of his Pokémon in this line, yet says that instead of fainting as one would in the actual fight, he'll blackout, which is what the person not actually personally getting his ass beat does. Plus, let's be honest here, fainting is much more iconic to Pokémon.) Fluttershy: Yo! MLP's back after a twelve-year gap! (This is the 9th line said by an MLP character. If you're going to proclaim one's return in a song, try doing it more towards the beginning. It just makes more sense from a storytelling standpoint. Also, the entire "twelve-year-gap" statement is kinda confusing. Friendship is Magic began airing in 2010, right at the start of MLP's "Fourth Generation," so it can be assumed they're talking about 1998. The only MLP product made in 1998 was a virtual pet game, like Tamagotchi. According to Wikipedia, that was the entirety of Generation 2 of MLP. But what about Generation 3? That's right, that "gap" this lyric mentions is an entire generation of MLP, which included a fuckton of video games and movies by the way. Shit research. Also, Friendship is Magic has been airing for 6 years now, so just now bragging about their return is super redundant even if it wasn't factually incorrect.) Your rhymes are so lame we call them Pokémon Snap! (This line is presented as if it was a joke. So when you hear "Pokémon Snap," you're left to believe "Snap" is the crux of the joke, and you're sitting there thinking "haha because snap is a synonym for lame, they actually said something clever." It took me 0.00000005 seconds after that thought went through my mind for me to realize "wait, actually, they're fucking retarded." Instead of being the clever wordplay the emphasis of the delivery leads us to believe this line is/will be, it's just a boring insult calling Pokémon Snap lame.) I care for all the animals, from rhinos to chicks; (The polar opposite of everyone's favorite line from everyone's favorite battle. "We'll snap your fucking necks like Fluttershy killed a bear!" Real talk this line seems like it's a decent setup to a joke, it's just worded strangely. We don't really need examples of animals Fluttershy cares for. I know that part was just written as rhyme filler. And I don't know if there's a rhino that ever appears in MLP, but if there is, it's still kinda weird to include here, even to create a juxtapositional metaphor for "large and small", and if there isn't, then this just doesn't fit in here anyway.) You treat your pets worse than Michael Freakin' Vick! (You made me google again. I don't want to google shit. I just want to know what the hell you're telling me. Either way, I guess it's a funny punchline if you happen to have already been caught up with your 2007 animal abuse scandals.) (So I'm gonna update this. The audio for Ash vs Darwin has just come out as I write this. Turns out Michael Vick is a relevant enough joke. Props to ERB for catching me on my shit before I spewed it. Fact of the matter is, ERB did the joke better.) Nurse Joy: Gasp! You Pokémon look hurt, let me take you for a while, ("Filler. Filler. Filler. Filler. Filler. Filler. Filler. Filler. Filler. Filler. Filler.") Wait, you're not Pokémon, you're a show for a child! ("Filler. Filler. Filler. Filler. Filler. You're a child's TV show." Fucking art right here. I love the use of hypocrisy in making the insult based around a child's TV show insulting a child's TV show for being a child's TV show, along with connecting the two points by comparing the look of the ponies to Pokémon despite this having already been done in Ash's Rapidash line, and the wonderful use of filler. I'm starting to actually consider whether this is made to actually be some crazy enlightening avant-garde satire at the structure of bad writing.) Twilight Sparkle: Get out of my face with your tragic blathering, (Oop, nope, guess not, because now they're unironically attempting to make another joke. You can tell because it's the first line of a couplet and it's all filler, the exact structure of Animeme Rap Battles's jokes.) Your card game's more childish than Magic the Gathering. ("You're the saddest thing to happen to Magic since the Gathering!" Okay, actually, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, you know, season 2 of ARB had been in production for a looooong time...it's possible this is a coincidence. But coincidence or not, ERB beat ARB to the joke, and now the joke is much weaker and pretty damn boring. Not to mention ERB began the joke with a line that wasn't 100% filler, so they were already off to a better start.) Professor Oak: I'm an old man, been whipping pony since the pony express. (This line would've been more clever if it was built up to with another mail reference, instead it's just "HERES A HISTORICAL THING THAT HAD PONIES IN IT NOW LAUGH!" And no the "whipping ponies in the Pony Express" part of the joke holds no point to the Pony Express because that's just how you ride a fucking pony at most points in history.) Been putting work in the lab, just made this Ponydex! (Innocent buildup to the buildup. Decent way to introduce the rapper, I guess. "Ponydex" is an ok pun I guess.) Ponydex: Twilight Sparkle: main protagonist of ''My Little Pony'' (Buildup. Nothing really bad here, it's decent buildup. Done just as a Pokédex probably actually would do it.) Also..a whiny little bitch and a phony. (Now here, the line is too short and disjointed and doesn't present the joke as a Pokédex actually would - that is, explaining a behavioral activity done by Twilight Sparkle and deriving the humor from that. Also this is the second use of the term "phony.") Rainbow Dash: You senile old geezer, it's about time you quit this. (Did somebody say boring filler joke buildup? No? Too bad, that's what you get.) You couldn't beat a gym leader at 24-Hour Fitness! (Okay, I'll admit it, the punchline to this joke is actually a million doses of yes. It's actually a fucking diss. Holy shit.) Ash Ketchum: We're more popular in Asia than bikes and rice! (Good boast, presented cleverly and humorously, isn't filler. Good line.) I'll shish kebab you and turn you all into a carousel ride! (A funny threat, but not necessarily a good final clause.) Meowth: Listen up, Ash! Your rhymes are defective! (Filler entrance not unlike "We're creepers and you charged us up because both your rhymes are whack!") Here, take this bomb - it's super effective! (And this rap battle has officially devolved into a game of Rock Paper Scissors where your opponent plays gun, and when you then play gun, guess what, they played bazooka. Yes I did hate elementary school, why do you ask?) Pimpin' ain't easy, ponies, and I've never seen your show, (Meowth is a pimp here for some reason, I guess just to set up for the final line. But the buildup to this joke shouldn't be "I've never seen your show." Like yes, finally someone's proud for not being a Brony, that's a breath of fresh air for this battle, but that doesn't connect to the punchline at all.) But you all got stripper names so pony up the dough! (Okay, this finisher is also fucking great. Good one. Try making the buildups better next time. Also try making funny punchlines like this every time.) Meowth! That's right! or Meowth! I love blow! (And finally, just in case you forgot, you're definitely still watching Meowth be a third-party rapper in this battle because fuck you. As an added bonus, in some versions of the video, "this is correct", while in others, he apparently loves blow. No, I don't know why that's a thing.) I have to rewrite it now, don't I... Fair warning: I couldn't finish .....ugh...fine... But I'm using different characters this time. No Joy, no Oak, and no Meowth. In fact, no third party whatsoever. Just a normal Pokémon vs My Little Pony rap battle. So, with format and character corrections along with new lyrics...here we go... Actually I totally gave up. I'm writing this like two weeks since I've made any progress in writing this and I just can't. Call it writers block, but all I know is this idea shouldn't have even been attempted by me. I'll try and make up for this in my future reviews. Sorry. But either way, here's a sixteen-line battle between Ash Ketchum and Twilight Sparkle. Twilight Sparkle: Yo, Ash, ain't you heard? MLP's been the biggest word, You'd understand things like that if you actually took some time in school to learn. Ash Ketchum: Not that I won't be no nerd, it's just that the lunch there is absurd, Ponies are kind of in bad taste, and you're getting served. Twilight Sparkle: Oh, har-dee-har, you wannabe child's icon, I got guys of all size on my side; all your fads are here and gone. Ash Ketchum: Please, your cultural status is a sham, you're a bandwagon phony, My Little Pony, any baby with a brain finds a flaw in the Bronies. Twilight Sparkle: Well your fans are taught strength and determination, then immediately forget, I mean, you claim to catch them all? You've barely caught five percent! While when I bring my friends, we got that friendship teach tease, And we'll put Ash in his place: in a jar on the mantelpiece! Ash Ketchum: Then it's to the glue factory with any anthropomorphic animals that stay passive! I was told there would be Ponytas here but all I can see are a bunch of asses. And when it comes to loyalty and friendship then you can ask Brock and Misty, And Dawn, Max, May, and Tracey what it's like to chill with me. It's over finally I'll be honest, there were some season 2 ARB's that I liked. Kanye vs Keanu especially. But most of them are trash. So trash that I actually couldn't finish the rewrite. So there. I'm done with this one. Tune in next time when I rip into the director rap battle royale, and no, not the ERB, and keep watching for me to probably tear Dragon and probably Gaming All-Star Rap Battles a new one. Thanks for reading.O Category:Blog posts